Monday, March 2, 2009

Mission Seven: Escapism

For years I have been containing superhumans in a prison in the basement of a paper company. Surely The Raft wouldn't be much different. That meant I had an advantage. I knew exactly what to expect. This would be like fighting myself. Simple. Easy. I'm a pushover.

"Hello," I said extending my hand.

The warden of The Raft shook my hand and responded, "Good to meet you."

"As I said on the phone, I'm with a very top secret paper company," I explained, "and, well, we'd like to borrow a few Skrulls for a while; we need test subjects for our enhanced interrogation techniques."

"Skrulls, eh?" He rubbed his head. "I don't know. I mean, they're worse than Muslims. They're like Muslims on Red Bull. Have you ever seen an overly-caffeinated suicide bomber?"

I shook my head.

"Pray you don't, son. Pray you don't."

"Can I see where you're keeping them?" I asked.

"Sure," he replied. "Follow me."

Warden Rumsfeld led me down a long and heavily-guarded corridor and into an elevator. He inserted his ID card into a slot and entered in a passcode on the numberpad. Then, we were in motion. "So, did you see The Sopranos finale?" I asked.

Before he could answer, the elevator stopped.

"Nice," I said as we stepped out into the cold concrete facility. "This looks just like what we had, uh, have back at Primatech. What is that? Anti-power Plexiglas?"

"The forty-eight hundred series," he replied, "not out on the public market yet."

I tapped on the Plexiglas in amazement. The inmate on the other side snarled and banged all four of his fists against it.

"Here you are," Rumsfeld showed me an empty cell.

"There are no Skrulls in there," I observed.

"This is your cell, Noah," he pulled out a microphone and began dictating orders to the prison staff.

"No! You can't lock me up," I complained, raising a finger. "I'm a very important person, middle management even."